Tag Archives: ocean

Edible six-pack rings are a brilliant answer to plastic pollution

by JudeMathis Posted on May 23, 2016

Edible six-pack rings are a brilliant answer to plastic pollution

By on May 23, 2016Share

Happy World Turtle Day!

Didn’t know that’s a thing? Unlike other made-up holidays — say, National Hug Your Boss Day — the occasion is both adorable and important.

Turtles are at risk all over the planet. For some species of turtles, life is so precarious that less than 0.1 percent will survive to adulthood. Turtles have an array of natural predators to worry about, as well as man-made hazards like cars. The lucky ones that manage to avoid humans and predators still risk getting trapped in or ingesting our garbage.

Now, one brewery has a plan that could help sea turtles and other ocean animals.

Saltwater Brewing, a beer manufacturer based in Florida, was founded by a group of surfers and all around ocean lovers. Aware that six-pack beer rings are some of the more common and deadly detritus found in the ocean, Saltwater created a six-pack ring that can actually be eaten. And it’s made from spent grain, the by-product of the beer itself, that would otherwise get tossed out.

While edible six-pack ring isn’t exactly health food for turtles, at least it won’t kill them. “It’s kind of like having a Sour Patch Kid,” brewery founder Chris Gove told Upworthy. “You’d rather have your kid eat a Sour Patch Kid than a Lego. That’s kind of how I see it.”

Learn more about the edible six-pack ring below:

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Edible six-pack rings are a brilliant answer to plastic pollution

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Coral reefs are straight-up dissolving now

by AlfredoCormier Posted on May 4, 2016

Coral reefs are straight-up dissolving now

By on May 4, 2016Share

Florida’s coral reefs are disintegrating much faster than expected. And who’s to blame? Oh, you know, just the ENTIRE OCEAN.

Ocean water is growing increasingly acidic as it absorbs the extra CO2 we’re pumping into the atmosphere, and now that water is eating away at the limestone foundations of coral reefs. A new study found that in the northern section of the Florida Keys’ reef — the third largest barrier reef ecosystem in the world — 6 million tons of limestone have disappeared over the past six years.

This wasn’t unexpected. It’s just that scientists had predicted the reef’s “tipping point,” where coral development is so severely limited by ocean acidification that reefs erode, was a good 40 years off — not today.

Ocean acidification is different from coral bleaching, another threat to reefs, though both have a common cause (climate change) and a common effect (dying corals). We’re looking to our most resilient corals to survive the challenges of living in today’s oceans.

We hope we never have to hold a farewell party for Florida’s coral reef, but ocean acidification is spurring along that unsavory outcome. Here’s to hoping we can usher this uninvited guest out of our coral reefs before it’s too late.

Watch our video on ocean acidification to learn more:

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Coral reefs are straight-up dissolving now

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Emma Watson’s Met Gala outfit was trash

by CassieO74ss Posted on May 3, 2016

Trashy to Classy

Emma Watson’s Met Gala outfit was trash

By on May 3, 2016Share

Scrolling through Met Gala photos is like going through a bag of jelly beans — full of surprises and questions! Are cyborgs and werewolves coming for us all? Are these the end times? Is that a pile of garbage on top of Emma Watson?

Yes, it is, and it actually looked cute. Watson’s dress — a collaboration by Calvin Klein and Eco Age — is made from recycled plastic bottles. Since we’re on track to have more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, thank goodness someone had the ingenuity and presence of mind to toss some of that on one of Hollywood’s more celebrated starlets.

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s not sustainable! When is she going to wear that again?” A valid question, as Americans wear a given garment seven times on average before throwing it away. Surprise, again: That’s not a dress — those are pants. In fact, it’s a multi-piece, mix-and-matchable outfit.

Watson explains how it all works on her Facebook page: “It is my intention to repurpose elements of the gown for future use. The trousers can be worn on their own, as can the bustier, the train can be used for a future red carpet look … I’m looking forward to experimenting with this. Truly beautiful things should be worn again and again and again.”

Specifically, she’s planning to wear the outfit 30 times.

On the topic of ocean awareness: Did Taylor Swift skin a fish for a dress that wouldn’t look out of place on a bottle waitress at the most elite club in Canton, Ohio? Don’t get me wrong — that’s a high compliment.

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Emma Watson’s Met Gala outfit was trash

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Oceans won’t have enough oxygen in as little as 15 years

by KarryRohr0004 Posted on April 29, 2016

Oceans won’t have enough oxygen in as little as 15 years

By on Apr 29, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

It should come as no surprise that human activity is causing the world’s oceans to warm, rise, and acidify.

But an equally troubling impact of climate change is that it is beginning to rob the oceans of oxygen.

While ocean deoxygenation is well established, a new study led by Matthew Long, an oceanographer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, finds that climate change-driven oxygen loss is already detectable in certain swaths of ocean and will likely be “widespread” by 2030 or 2040.

Ultimately, Long told The Huffington Post, oxygen-deprived oceans may have “significant impacts on marine ecosystems” and leave some areas of ocean all but uninhabitable for certain species.

While some ocean critters, like dolphins and whales, get their oxygen by surfacing, many, including fish and crabs, rely on oxygen that either enters the water from the atmosphere or is released by phytoplankton via photosynthesis.

But as the ocean surface warms, it absorbs less oxygen. And to make matters worse, oxygen in warmer water, which is less dense, has a tough time circulating to deeper waters.

For their study, published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Long and his team used simulations to predict ocean deoxygenation through 2100.

“Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change,” Long said in a statement. “This new study tells us when we can expect the impact from climate change to overwhelm the natural variability.”

And we don’t have long.

Matthew Long/NCAR

By 2030 or 2040, according to the study, deoxygenation due to climate change will be detectable in large swaths of the Pacific Ocean, including the areas surrounding Hawaii and off the West Coast of the U.S. mainland. Other areas have more time. In the seas near the east coasts of Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia, for example, deoxygenation caused by climate change still won’t be evident by 2100.

Long said the eventual suffocation may affect the ability of ocean ecosystems to sustain healthy fisheries. The concern among the scientific community, he said, is that “we’re conceivably pushing past tipping points” in being able to prevent the damage.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, shared these concerns, telling The Washington Post that the new study adds to the “list of insults we are inflicting on the ocean through our continued burning of fossil fuels.”

“Just a week after learning that 93 [percent] of the Great Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching in response to the unprecedented current warmth of the oceans, we have yet another reason to be gravely concerned about the health of our oceans, and yet another reason to prioritize the rapid decarbonization of our economy,” Mann said.

Unfortunately, this reason is unlikely to be the last.

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Oceans won’t have enough oxygen in as little as 15 years

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Extreme heat? Check. Ice loss? Check. Any other records we can shatter?

by LeandroOqy Posted on April 20, 2016

Extreme heat? Check. Ice loss? Check. Any other records we can shatter?

By on Apr 20, 2016commentsShare

The world has been breaking climate records left and right. Here’s the short list:

2015 was by far the hottest year since record-keeping began in 1880, shattering the record we just set in 2014.
The first three months of 2016 have already reached new highs.
The past 11 months globally were the hottest in 137 years of records.
A record amount of the Arctic Ocean never froze this winter. And Greenland’s ice started melting at its earliest date yet.
Carbon levels in the atmosphere showed their biggest-ever annual jump last year, according to readings at NOAA’s Mauna Loa observatory.

El Niño is partly to blame for warmer-than-usual temperatures, but scientists say we wouldn’t be seeing this record-breaking streak if global warming weren’t also fueling extreme temperatures.

Looking over this list of dubious accomplishments, I wondered what climate records we haven’t shattered in the last few years. So I asked a handful of scientists what’s left to fall.

Hot, hot, hot

Though the globe as a whole has experienced record heat, there’s enough regional variation that plenty of local records remain, former White House science advisor and Woods Hole Research Center President Phil Duffy said. And extreme weather and “natural” disasters — record storms, drought, and heat waves, for instance — are bound to occur all over the map.

“The spot where record rains occur moves from one month and year to the next,” Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told me via email. “The same with wildfires. … If not where you are then somewhere not that far away, and your turn will come sooner or later.”

Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann wrote that “eventually we would expect that the all-time record for maximum daily temperature will be broken this decade or in the decades ahead in every city of the world. To date, this is only true for some percent of locations. Over time, that percent will approach 100 percent.”

Adios, ice

Scientists who study ice at the poles say there are still records standing in their field. “Some places haven’t warmed very much yet — Antarctica for instance — and so records there (in sea ice or temperature) are not falling at the same rate,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. (That’s not true in the Arctic, though, which has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the world.)

And believe it or not,  there’s still a record from 1940 that we have shattered yet: That’s the year when ice broke up in Alaska’s frozen Tanana River at its earliest date. (We know because folks like to bet on it.)

Another record the world appears to be on track for breaking around 2050: A summer when all the Arctic sea ice melts. Scientists think this hasn’t happened in 10,000 years, and even then it isn’t clear that the Arctic Ocean was completely ice-free. Ice has covered the poles for millions of years.

Altogether, it seems like there’s only one kind of record we’re in no danger of breaking anytime soon: the cold ones. The last time the planet saw a record-cold month was 99 years ago.

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Extreme heat? Check. Ice loss? Check. Any other records we can shatter?

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The unexpected ways climate change harms your health

by AlyciaX57289953 Posted on April 4, 2016

A man rests during a heat wave in Manhattan, New York. Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

The unexpected ways climate change harms your health

By on 4 Apr 2016commentsShare

Climate change is bad for your health. There’s no question that the impacts of a warming world — harsher heat waves, increased flooding — will put a strain on our nation’s public health. Take one example: studies predict some 11,000 additional heat-related deaths during summers about 15 years from now.

But other health-related climate consequences have proven more difficult to tease out and thus more difficult to quantify. The White House released a scientific report on Monday that draws on research from eight federal agencies to provide the most comprehensive look yet at climate’s health impacts.

“I don’t know that we’ve seen something like this before, where you have a force that has such a multitude of effects,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters when previewing the report. “As far as history is concerned, this is a new type of threat that we’re facing.”

Here are some of the more unexpected consequences of climate change identified in the report:

Americans are at greater risk of eating contaminated food. Higher temperatures and more extreme weather create perfect conditions for dangerous contaminants to make their way into the food supply. For example, researchers found a link between higher ocean temperatures and mercury accumulation in seafood. Warmer weather and flooding also raises the chance for foodborne illnesses like salmonella.

More of the water we drink may be unsafe. The same problems in food affect water quality, with extreme weather and floods raising the risk of bacteria, pathogens, and other contaminants. Plus, higher temps give harmful algae the opportunity to thrive in new, more widespread parts of the country. Compounding the problem is when flooding overwhelms our existing and quite creaky water infrastructure.

Mosquitoes and ticks will be more than an itchy nuisance. Mild winters and early warmer seasons allow insects to travel further and faster, carrying illnesses like Lyme Disease with them.

Disasters will compromise mental health for already-vulnerable populations. Just think about the stress that extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy add to people’s lives: displaced families, economic losses, ruined livelihoods. For children, the elderly, and pregnant women, who are among the most vulnerable, these conditions can lead to post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression.

The air you breathe is dirtier. Fossil fuels make our air dirtier — that’s obvious. But greenhouse gases can impact air quality in other ways. Climate change affects weather and precipitation patterns, changing how smog and particulate matter moves over cities. More wildfires add pollution  to the air, too.

Lives are literally at stake if we don’t act on climate change. Even a small global change in average temperature can hurt people at the extremes, and the same holds true for health — affecting the poor, indigenous, very young, and very elderly people the most.

“The public health case for climate action is really compelling beyond words,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said. “It’s not just about glaciers and polar bears. It’s about the health of our kids.”

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The unexpected ways climate change harms your health

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Rising Seas Could Deluge US Coastal Cities Sooner Than We Thought

by KimberlyDing062 Posted on April 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared on Newsweek and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Boston and other coastal cities may want to batten down the hatches. A new study from climate scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Pennsylvania State University warns estimates of future sea level rise may be significantly underestimated. The real picture 100 to 500 years from now, they claim, will be ugly for US coastal cities from New York to Miami, which could be underwater or at risk of flooding. Boston, for example, could see about 5 feet of sea level rise in the next 100 years, according to the researchers.

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Rising Seas Could Deluge US Coastal Cities Sooner Than We Thought

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Arctic sea ice hits another record low

by BarbraLlanas529 Posted on March 29, 2016

Arctic sea ice hits another record low

By on 29 Mar 2016commentsShare

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports that a record amount of the Arctic sea never froze this winter. Ice extent, which usually hits a wintertime maximum around mid-March, was at a record-low for the second year in a row, 5,000 square miles below 2015’s record-low maximum extent. This year’s maximum extent is 431,000 square miles below averages from 1981 to 2010.

It’s a pattern that will likely continue, according to NASA Arctic sea scientist Walter Meier. “It is likely that we’re going to keep seeing smaller wintertime maximums in the future because in addition to a warmer atmosphere, the ocean has also warmed up,” Meier said. The amount of sea ice can vary a lot from year to year, but we’re seeing “significant downward trend” from warming conditions, Meier added.

This new record comes after another year of record high temperatures across the globe: 2015 broke the record for high temperatures set by 2014, and February of this year was the hottest month on record. And the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. “I’ve never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze. “The heat was relentless.”

Arctic sea ice is vital to stabilizing Earth’s temperature, according to NASA; when it melts, the oceans absorb more sunlight and warm ever faster. Subsequently, this melts more sea ice, contributing to to global sea level rise. It’s a cycle. A very disturbing cycle. You can watch a visualization from NASA below.

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Protestors turn a federal offshore oil auction into a circus

by Rosemary60V Posted on March 23, 2016

Protestors turn a federal offshore oil auction into a circus

By on 23 Mar 2016 1:38 pmcommentsShare

About 150 activists disrupted a federal auction for offshore oil and gas leases on Wednesday at the New Orleans’ Superdome, taking over what’s normally a sedate meeting to make a statement against fossil fuels.

The anti-drilling protest included members of national environmental groups, community advocates and indigenous rights groups who want the Obama administration to close off the Gulf of Mexico to more offshore development.

“There was singing and chanting, and the industry guys actually managed to hold the lease sale over all the yelling,”  Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth who marched with the group on Wednesday told Grist, adding that the protestors stayed in the room for about an hour as the auction continued. “We definitely made a strong stand.”

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Check out the chaos for yourself:

This protest countered a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auction for two planned sales off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico on tracts located anywhere from approximately three to 230 miles off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The area, said to contain the say the eighth-largest carbon reserve on Earth, stretches across about 45 million acres. According to Politico, BOEM took bids on one of the two sales on Wednesday.

The Obama administration this month reversed an earlier plan that would allow drilling off the Atlantic coast, but he hasn’t spared the Gulf of Mexico from future drilling. The Gulf could be up for 10 new leases from 2017-2022, and activists haven’t lost hope that the Gulf of Mexico will be taken off the table, as well.

“Here in Gulf, this is the first time people from all over the coast and the country have converged to demand no new leases on oil and gas.” Knodel added the protesters will be back the next time there’s an auction in August.

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Protestors turn a federal offshore oil auction into a circus

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Leonardo DiCaprio gives $1 million to help island nation protect its oceans

by ArnetteSoderste Posted on March 19, 2016

Leonardo DiCaprio gives $1 million to help island nation protect its oceans

By on 19 Mar 2016commentsShare

From Shutter Island to Manatee Island, Leonardo DiCaprio keeps winning our hearts — and our climate-inclined minds.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation recently granted $1 million to help the Seychelles islands protect their ocean territory — which makes up 99 percent of the country.

It’s part of a huge, unprecedented swap between the Pacific Island nation and foreign investor groups. The gist of the deal: The country of 115 tiny islands commits to protecting 154,000 square miles of its surrounding seas, and in return, its lenders agree to restructure $21.4 million of its debt. From Mashable:

In this case, instead of repaying debt at relatively high interest rates, the Seychelles government will redirect payments to a new, locally-run organization known as the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust.

DiCaprio’s (ahem) titanic donation will go toward financing this swap, which was brokered by The Nature Conservancy and will result in the second-largest swath of protected waters in the West Indian Ocean. By protecting coral reefs and limiting damaging fishing practices, Seychelles is hoping it will encourage more resilient ecosystems — and in turn, a more robust economy for the ocean-dependent nation.

“We champion projects like this one across the globe that use cutting edge methods in conservation and environmental protection,” said DiCaprio in a press release. “This deal will enhance food security for the local people of Seychelles, help mitigate the effects of climate change on their low-lying island home, and protect the surrounding rich ocean ecosystems for future generations.”

All the more reason to lobby for a new holiday: Leonardo DiCapprecation Day!

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